Inquey Depths
by kanashii yurei
Summary: [complete] right. this is kinda a love story thing..i figured terry shud have someone hu would understand his night life..yeaz..and who better than a reformed criminal? : read on to find out more!
1. Revival

**Chapter 1 – Revival**

Deanna sulked as she left the manager's office. She was just tired – what was wrong with a little nap while the machine mixed the chemicals? But no, the manager of the chemical plant she worked in had just fired her. She was broke again – her mother's bank accounts were empty.

She looked at the huge vat of mutagen in one of the storage chambers. The chemical would fetch a lot of money from splicers, who more often than not had regularity problems with their DNA. Millions of credits, probably.

Deanna walked up to the vat. In cases of contamination, there was a flush function included all the storage vats. She crept into the chamber, found the button, and pushed it. The drains opened, and out went the million-dollar mutagen. Deanna snickered and went on her way. Vengeance was sweet.

Below Gotham, somewhere in the sewers, Inque lay on a patch of dry concrete, too weak to sustain her human form or shapeshift. She was just a pool of black liquid. And she was dying. She knew it. _Deanna, how could you betray me?_

Something was rushing along the adjoining pipe. Even in her weakened state Inque could hear it. There was water, and lots of it, rushing right towards the spot where she lay. Then the smell wafted ahead, and reached her. Somehow, the smell of the stuff was familiar …

The pipe filled with the odd-smelling liquid. Then Inque realised. Mutagen. Gathering the last of her strength, she took the form of an elongated cord and wrapped herself tightly around a pillar.

The mutagen hit her hard, but she held on to the pillar, absorbing as much of the life-saving chemical as she could. It seemed as if the mutagen would never stop coming. Just as Inque began to lose her grip, it was gone, as suddenly as it had come.

Inque slithered to the floor, which was now damp with mutagen. She was exhausted. But she was relieved, too. She would not die after all. In a few hours, she would be all right …

_What was I thinking?_ Deanna berated herself as she ran from SynPlas Corp's security guards. Of course she would get caught. She had sent half the company's stock of mutagen into the sewers. And she was probably going to get shot for her trouble. So she ran, and took as many turns as she could.

The sliding doors were just up ahead. If she could get out before they locked her in, she could escape. She threw herself at them, slipping through a narrowing gap just before the two halves of the bulletproof glass door came together with a final kind of click.

Deanna heaved a sigh of relief as the guards pounded on the locked door. Then she was off without so much as a backward glance. She knew SynPlas would not risk losing more money to file a lawsuit against her. She supposed there was still enough money in Inque's second bank account to put up a good fight.

She went home. She lived in a small apartment in the lower-end living district of Gotham. No matter. She could always get another job somewhere … a job with better wages and less work. With a dreamy smile she collapsed on the bed and promptly fell asleep.

Inque resumed her human form and stretched luxuriously. The large amount of mutagen she had absorbed had done wonders for her. She was as strong – stronger, even – as she had ever been. She thought of all the sabotage missions she had done in the past, and where they had gotten her. _Never again._

She shapeshifted, becoming thin strands of black substance. She found a manhole covered with a metal grid. She slipped between the strips of iron and emerged into night in Gotham's park. And a very interesting battle was going on across the pavement from her.


	2. Inque to the Rescue

**Chapter 2 – Inque to the Rescue**

Terry McGinnis had been patrolling as Batman when a familiar-looking scimitar had sliced into the Batcar. Curaré was back. And he was fighting her. She had gotten a lot stronger, too.

One moment, the blue-skinned assassin had been in front of him, and the next she was not. A faint sound behind him caused him to whirl around. The molecule-wide blade was sweeping towards his head …

A thick cord of liquid-like substance curled around the hilt of the scimitar and wrenched at it. The blow went wide, and the scimitar scored a thin gash across his chest instead of taking his head off. The suit shorted out.

Inque and Curaré grappled for another few seconds before a second black tendril whacked the latter in the side. This gave Inque all the advantage she needed. She yanked the sword right out of Curaré's hands and tossed it away. It landed point-down in the grass, embedding itself for more than half its length.

Inque pulled back and resumed her human form. Curaré stared at her for a moment or two before turning and fleeing. The scimitar was left behind. Inque snaked out a tendril and pushed it all the way into the ground. Then she wrenched the protruding hilt off.

"That was easy enough," she commented airily. She glanced at the masked man she knew only as Batman. He was staring at her, in wonder but also cautiously. He obviously thought she was going to turn on him any moment.

"You died," he said finally.

Inque did not respond. She watched the blood trickle from Batman's wound for a moment. It was narrow, but quite deep. "If you keep thinking I'm going to attack you," she said finally, "you'll bleed to death before I get the chance."

Terry glanced down at the bleeding cut. _That could have been my head._ "Thanks, I suppose," he told Inque carefully.

Inque smiled when Batman thanked her. Just a small indulgence. "Just as long as you don't try to freeze me, electrocute me, dissolve me or wash me away, I won't harm a hair on your head," she offered coolly.

He stared at her. "I'm not back for revenge. Not on you, at any rate," she said calmly. She glanced absentmindedly at the nails on one hand, sitting down on a nearby bench. "Curaré, however … did you know she had to eliminate the entire Society of Assassins because you foiled her mission? The Society does not condone failure. Any who fail a task becomes marked for death."

After a short hesitation, Batman sat down beside her, trying vainly to stem the bleeding. "How did you know?" he asked her.

"A long time ago, I thought of joining them. That particular rule turned me right off," Inque replied. She glanced at him again. "I think that's enough for one night. Whoever you are, get yourself to the hospital." Without waiting for a response, she faded away into the shadows.

Inque wondered where Deanna lived. Her daughter no longer owned their old house. And judging by the rate at which she spends, Inque had no doubt Deanna had spent most, if not all, of the money she had in her bank accounts.

"Deanna, Deanna," she murmured under her breath as she entered an alley. "After all I have given you, how could you turn out like this? Even if it was just money …" She saw a familiar-looking figure silhouetted in a window two floors above. The lights in the particular apartment went off, but Inque had seen enough. Morphing into a flat creeping shadow, she oozed up the fire escape to the window, slipping through a small gap left open.

Inque resumed her human form in the small apartment. Deanna was fast asleep on the bed. She stood there and looked at her daughter. Tears started to well up in her eyes, but she suppressed them.

The lock on the main door clicked. Inque jerked around, preparing to shapeshift. The door swung open with the faintest of creaks. A man, dressed like the personal crony of a rich man, entered cautiously, a gun ready in his hand.

Without hesitation, Inque struck, swift and silent. She became a web of tentacles. One curled around the man's gun hand and pinned it to the wall. At the same time, the others started beating him right and left. The hitman let out a single yell before Inque's assault sent him crumpling to the ground.

Deanna sat up and tumbled out of bed, groping for the light switch. She snapped the lights on. Inque clouted the man over the head, and he passed out. Deanna screamed and ran for the window that led to the fire escape.

"Deanna!" Inque called as Deanna vaulted out of the window and started off down the fire escape. She ran to the window, only to see a terrified Deanna taking off across the main street outside the alley.


	3. Curare's Disciple

**Chapter 3 – Curaré's Disciple**

Instead of going to the hospital, Terry went to Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne helped him stop the bleeding and bandaged the long cut for him. "Curaré is back," he mused when they were done.

"Curaré's back," Terry echoed. He decided not to mention Inque. She had changed, definitely, but Wayne would probably still see her as a criminal. "She escaped the rest of the Society of Assassins, apparently. Probably by killing them all."

Inque spiralled out of the apartment window in a barely perceptible black arc. She went after Deanna, who was running hard and glancing back fearfully to see if she was still there. She bounced off a car on the road and zipped straight towards Deanna.

Suddenly, a blue blur barrelled out of a side alley. Several knife-edged darts flew Inque's way. She twisted her metamorphic body to avoid them. Curaré threw more darts to distract Inque. When she could look again, both were gone.

"Deanna!" Inque called, running into the alley Curaré had appeared from. It was empty. She stood in the dark alley, baffled. Finally she made a decision. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Back in Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne's computer screen began to flash and beep. He pulled up an alert message. "Something's just triggered the alarm at a jewellery store. Something that never touched the doors."

_Inque,_ Terry thought. "Consider me gone."

Five minutes later, Batman arrived at the affected jewellery store. He had to find Inque, and fast. The police would be there any minute. He was wary – he knew how stealthily and quickly she could hit.

He felt pressure on his shoulder. He whirled, fist drawn back in preparation to strike. Inque ducked the blow.

"Why?" Terry asked when it was quite clear she was not going to attack.

"I didn't actually take anything," Inque replied. "It was the only way I knew to call you."

Police sirens sounded in the distance. They glanced at each other, then upon unspoken consent, both ran for cover. Inque became an inky arc. She propelled herself onto a rooftop. Batman activated the flight function in his batsuit and followed. They ducked behind a generator to avoid the police searchlights.

"The blue-skinned assassin who was after you – Curaré – kidnapped Deanna. I need your help to find them," Inque said straightforwardly.

A pause, then, "She betrayed you."

"She's still my daughter," Inque insisted. She looked Batman in the eye. He stared back for a long moment before agreeing to help.

Inque's kiss caught Terry completely off guard. She had done it before, the second time he faced her, but this time was different, somehow. Perhaps the absence of chains restraining him did it. But whatever the reason, he kissed her back.

"Someday I'm going to find out who you are," Inque whispered, turning her head sideways slightly to free her mouth. Then she slipped away in a quiet wisp of liquid shadow.

Inque left hurriedly, hating herself more every second. She had let her resolve slip for a fraction of a second, and … she ended up kissing him. He was human, she was quite sure of it. She could be many things, but not that. Never again would she be human. She understood that much.

And she remembered Aaron – all too well. He had been in love with her. And she had used him to escape from cryogenic storage. He had ended up as a pool of multicoloured glop, or close to it. Manipulating … it seemed be have become a part of her nature after all those years …

She was afraid, too. Inque knew that once she had retrieved Deanna she had to take her daughter away from Gotham – away from danger – and stay with her to make sure she stayed safe. She was afraid that when the time comes, she would not be able to leave. For Deanna, she had to control herself. _Never again._

Pushing all thoughts of … _him_ out of her mind, she began a systematic search of the city for Deanna and Curaré. She travelled over the rooftops, then seeped into buildings using ventilation shafts or open windows, scouring the building before moving on to the next. Never a whiff of either woman reached her. On the twenty-first rooftop, she simply snapped back into her human form and collapsed from exhaustion. She was not completely healed yet, after all.

"Who were you talking to?" Bruce Wayne asked the moment Terry got back to the Manor. "It was Inque, wasn't it? Her daughter ... Deanna."

Terry said nothing. He should have used the shorted-out suit, but he had gotten a spare one instead … now Wayne knew. The computer beeped an alert. Both turned to look at the details. "This is serious," Bruce Wayne said gravely. "Go." Grateful towards whoever was causing the trouble on top of the SynPlas building, Terry donned his mask and left.

Inque raised her head to look at the woman who stood over her. _How had she gotten there?_ The woman was dressed in a half-white, half-black suit divided down the length of her body.

"Who are you?" she asked tiredly.

The woman looked at her coldly. "Ten. Curaré is my teacher."

"What do you want?" Inque said irritably.

Suddenly Ten threw out a hand. A razor-edged playing card flew towards Inque. She ducked it hurriedly. It passed less than a centimetre from her face. She could smell solvent. Not enough to dissolve her, but enough to weaken her to the point of uselessness.

Inque switched to fighting mode, avoiding solvent-covered cards and trying to hit Ten. But Curaré's new disciple had apparently learnt well. She was every bit as fast as her teacher. Her shoulder stung – she had been hit. She whirled in the direction where the card had come from. Another grazed her side from behind.

Dizzy from the solvent, Inque just started lashing out in all directions, knocking crates and rusty generators off the roof. Several more cards hit her in various places. It was going to reach a fatal dose soon.

Inque threw herself onto the roof of the next building. Two more cards sliced into her back and fell off before she landed. Then they stopped coming. She could not keep up her shapeshifting any longer. She went back to looking human. Bracing herself against the railing on the roof, she turned and looked.

Batman was grappling with Ten, holding her wrists and forcing her hands back. Each still held a sharp playing card. He was saying something to her too. Abruptly she stopped struggling and dropped the cards. She pulled one hand free and slapped him on the face. He released her other hand. Ten wasted no time in escaping over the roofs.

Terry did not bother to go after Melanie – she would never let him catch up. Instead he crossed over to the other building. Inque let go of the railing, stumbled towards him and fell forward for her trouble.

Inque's legs would not support her when she tried to walk towards Batman. They crumpled, and she fell. He caught her. She thought she heard him ask her what was wrong.

She passed out.


	4. Inque's Discovery

**Chapter 4 – Inque's Discovery**

"Will she be all right? That was a lot of solvent," Inque heard someone – Batman, she thought – say.

An older, somewhat familiar voice answered, "She will recover. Now tell me what exactly have you been doing, Terry McGinnis."

Terry McGinnis. Inque stayed very still, pretending to be unconscious. Perhaps she could learn more. She was lying on something soft – a bed or a long couch. She sensed three separate presences in the room – one standing somewhat protectively over her, the other two close together, a few metres away.

"You know very well the kind of damage she has done, and likely will do," the old man's voice continued. "You should have captured her. At least you brought her here." Inque bristled but kept up her pretence. She knew who he was now.

"She saved my life," Terry retorted.

"There is more to it," Bruce Wayne insisted. "You –"

Inque decided that she had heard enough. She stirred, making the movement as obvious as possible. The third presence made itself known. A dog growled. Startled, Inque opened her eyes and sat bolt upright. Terry had just put his mask back on.

She ignored him for the moment and looked around. She was in a small bedroom. Wayne Manor, then. A black dog stood beside Bruce Wayne, hackles raised.

Batman – whom she now secretly knew as Terry – stared at her as if he had never seen her before. He was wondering how much she had heard, probably. Then she thought of what Bruce Wayne had said. She had best be off.

"Why, Mr. Wayne," she said, in a way that was taunting but not enough so to be challenged, "thank you for saving my life. Excuse me, but I have some things to attend to." She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

The dog pounced. Reacting out of pure instinct, she morphed, shooting out of the shut window in an alarmed arch of black, shattering the glass. She took off across the grounds, slipped through the gate and made for the city.

Terry ran to the window when Inque suddenly crashed through it to get away from Ace. He had seen Bruce's slight gesture. He had sicced the dog on her. "Inque!" he shouted, to no avail. She was already out of the manor grounds. She had heard the part about capturing her. He was certain now.

"What did you do that for?" he snapped as Ace settled back into a crouch at Wayne's feet.

"You stood there and let her get away," Bruce Wayne chastised him in a low, angry voice.

Terry made an impatient sound. Bruce till held that his duty was to help capture all criminals, whatever he felt for them. He tried not to think about Melanie. He had no idea what he felt towards her anymore. "I'm going home," he said. "We can talk about it tomorrow."

Inque slipped into an office building. Being late at night, there were no staff around, except one. He was typing away furiously at his computer. On a deadline. Nevertheless, Inque approached from behind and whacked the guy over the head. He crumpled. She took over the computer.

"Let's see," she muttered to herself. Her fingers flew nimbly over the keyboard, typing in "T-E-R-R-Y M-C-G-I-N-N-I-S" into the search engine. There were only two hits. The first hit was a high school enrolment list. _High school?_ Inque thought. She selected that one.

The page was a list. She selected his name. It took her to another page. The page told her that Terry McGinnis was seventeen, and a senior at Hamilton High. There were his address and contact details as well. There was no photo, though.

"Let's see …" She returned to the search results page and selected the second one. The online diary. She read the entry. After a few paragraphs about school grades and cheerleading, she found what she was looking for. "_Another thing messing me up is my boyfriend. Hs name is Terry McGinnis, and he never seems to have time for me anymore … ever since … well, ever since he started working for this Bruce Wayne person. He's busy almost every night, and his excuses are getting lame … and I don't see much of him in school … I wonder if he's seeing someone else …_" Bingo. There was mention of Bruce Wayne.

Inque checked the author's profile. The diary belonged to Dana Tan, a student of Hamilton High. There was a photo. Dana was a pretty Asian-American girl with shoulder-length black hair. Very pretty. Inque sniffed irritably, then checked herself. She closed the window and cleared the history before leaving.

When Terry got home, the house was dark except for a light on in his mother's room. He tried to sneak past, but Mary McGinnis, who was sitting on her bed reading, happened to look up, and caught him.

"Terry, you're home," she said with a slight smile. "A strange woman came looking for you earlier. She was pretty, and dressed in black clothes with blue swirls over them. Her hair was the same. And she had on some kind of coloured make-up that made her skin look pale blue. Do you know her? She didn't give her name."

Terry froze. That sounded too much like Inque. "Yes, I know her," he replied slowly.

"Who is she?" his mother pressed him.

"Someone from school … she likes to do unusual things," he lied. "I'm tired, Mother. Mr. Wayne had a lot for me to do today."

Mary smiled understandingly and released him. He hurried to his room, took a shower, and collapsed on the bed. Inque knew who he was. He was tired, though, and soon fell into a troubled , restless sleep.


	5. Curare's Price

**Chapter 5 – Curaré's Price**

After school, Terry went to a part of the school grounds nobody ever went to and collapsed into a bench. He had fallen asleep in class and gotten caught. The teacher had set extra homework for the whole class because of that. Dana was upset with him for missing their date. He had been rescuing Inque from Melanie. It was a bad, bad day. He let his head hand back and shut his eyes.

"McGinnis. Here you are," Nelson Nash said in his obnoxious, insufferable voice. "It was a great stunt you pulled back there. Two essays, McGinnis. All because of you."

Terry opened his eyes and was about to tell Nelson Nash what an idiot he was when the latter's fist collided with his jaw. He realised that the guy had backup – his entire gang of jocks was with him – and that no one was likely to be around to intervene. Trouble, trouble, trouble.

They were all on him in an instant. There were too many for him to fight. He tried to find and opening to slip through so that he could get away, but there was none. Nash had been waiting for this chance, and now that he had it …

Something he could not see shoved Nash from behind. Immediately the whole gang backed off, facing the newcomer warily. Blood from a gash on his forehead trickled into Terry's eyes. He blinked, trying to clear them.

"Hey, chick," he heard one of Nash's cronies say. His voice was oily, the voice he used with pretty girls. "You're a pretty one. It would be a pity if we had to hurt you because you stood up for a loser like him."

This was followed by a yell of pain, and, "What the hell are you?"

Terry finally cleared his eyes, and looked. There were black tentacles flying through the air, beating Nash and his gang right and left. Ducking and dodging, they fled. In two minutes there was only him and Inque.

Inque looked infinitely pleased with herself as she watched the gang run. Her head jerked around to look at him. He quickly set his facial expression into one of relief, wonder and a little fear.

"You needn't look at me like that either," Inque said, sounding amused. "I'm looking for someone called Terry McGinnis."

Real relief coursed through Terry. She knew his name, but she did not know what he looked like, thank the gods for that. "I don't know him," he lied quickly.

Inque smiled again. "I seriously doubt that," she said calmly, eyeing his torso meaningfully. He glanced down. A thin line of red stained his shirt. The cut Curaré had given him had split open. His cover was blown.

"Can you stand?" Inque asked. She could not believe she had found Terry so easily. She watched as he got up unsteadily, scowling at the line of blood on his shirt. "You don't have to blame the cut. The moment you opened your mouth I knew. Let's just say I have a very good memory for voices," she told him.

Terry sat back down on the bench with a wince. "You heard everything the other night, didn't you?" he asked.

Inque tried to look innocent. "I thought I did quite a good job at looking unconscious," she answered. "I hope that window cost Wayne a bundle."

Terry rubbed a bruised spot on his shoulder. "If anything hits me anywhere for the next few days … drat Nash," he murmured. He glanced at Inque, then looked away quickly. "Thanks again, I suppose."

"I told you I was going to find out who you were someday," Inque said. She did not look at him either. He thought he heard her say, "But I never thought it would be so soon," under her breath.

"Inque." She blinked, as if jolted out of deep thought, and turned her head to face him. He didn't really know what he was doing, but he just leaned in and kissed her.

Inque nearly jumped out of her skin when Terry kissed her. She started to kiss him back, then reconsidered and pulled back, out of his reach.

"I'm sorry if you have the wrong idea," she said in a rush, "but I was really upset that night and … well … I wasn't thinking clearly … I mean it's impossible that … well …between us … so … I think I'll go back to looking for Deanna now." She jumped up and went over the fence, out of sight, leaving Terry sitting there looking as if she had slapped him – hard – several times.

Inque fled from the school as if from an impending tsunami of solvent. She had not meant for things to turn out that way. Why? Why did he have to try to kiss her? Suddenly a card flashed by her, embedding itself in the wall of the alley Inque was passing. Warily she went in after it.

It was the ace of spades. Around the symbol was scrawled a "ransom note". Inque scanned it. "_Bring Batman to me and Deanna goes free. We hide in the abandoned old SynPlas factory. No tricks._" It was signed "Curaré".

Inque dropped to her knees right there in the alley. How could they ask her for the one thing she would not give? She could, and with ease, but she would not. Between him and Deanna, how could she choose?

She looked up. The very guy in question was walking slowly past, looking fixedly at the pavement. But as her gaze fell on him, something seemed to make Terry raise his head to look into the alley.

"Inque?" he asked. "What's wrong?" He entered the alley and took her arm, pulling her to her feet. She followed the direction of his pull dumbly. The card fluttered out of her hand. He bent and picked it up.

That was when she shook herself. "No, don't read that!" she snapped.

Too late. He had already read. "So that's what she wants," he mused. "I'll meet you here tonight, right after sunset."

Inque looked at him, then dropped her eyes. "You're crazy."

"You mightn't like him very much, but Bruce Wayne has a lot of good tricks up his sleeves." His fingertips brushed her cheek. She stiffened, and he pulled back as if burned. He got up and left, taking the card with him.

Inque suddenly felt very, very tired. Somehow she made it to Deanna's deserted apartment. She lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

She sat up. The sun was setting. Her vision misted. Terry entered her thoughts again. She felt a bead of perspiration trickle down her face. _Perspiration? _She began thinking of the time when they had been adversaries. Even then, when she had hated him, she had been attracted to him, too.

"Right after sunset …" she murmured. Then it struck her. The sun was setting. She had noticed it without processing it the first time. Bruce Wayne might come up with a plan, but he did not know what Curaré planned. None of them did. Any plan made without prior knowledge could fail. It was a risk she refused to take. The apartment was empty before anyone could say "fool".

Without waiting for the sun to set completely, Terry donned the Batsuit and left Wayne Manor. The information Bruce had gotten … Melanie had brought a scimitar to an underground electrician to be installed with electrocution micro-wires. The information came from a bug he had attached to her sleeve the other night. He happened to know just how badly electricity affected Inque.

The sun disappeared about two minutes before he reached the alley they were supposed to meet in. For ten minutes he waited. Then he realised Inque would not be late by so much where Deanna was concerned. There was only one alternative – she was going to try to rescue Deanna by herself. Muttering a profanity under his breath, he rushed back to the Batcar.


	6. Saboteur

**Chapter 6 – Saboteur**

Inque stood at the back entrance of the old chemical factory. There was always reason for a rendezvous point. And she thought she had ruined that part of Curaré's plan. She thought. She morphed and slipped in through the gap in the door.

It seemed that she had been expected. The moment she was through, solvent-covered playing cards whizzed around the corner towards her. She divided herself into ten thin strands and spiralled towards the source of the cards, avoiding them as she did so.

But when she rounded the corner, Ten was no longer there. So she crept along the corridor. Abruptly she came to a locked door. It still used keys. She slipped through the keyhole.

She was in one of the storage chambers. There was no one there … except … a single limp form lay in the middle of the floor. Inque was by its side in a second. It was Deanna. There was a rope burn around her daughter's throat. Deanna was not breathing. Dead.

Suddenly the tip of a blade appeared in the centre of her abdomen. Inque laughed, a mirthless, gloomy sound. Blades could not hurt her. Then she saw the micro-wires. She threw her head back and screamed as a thousand volts of electricity coursed through her body.

Terry saw Melanie, dressed as Ten, sitting on the pavement outside the main gates of the abandoned SynPlas factory. She looked up as he climbed out of his vehicle.

"Terry!" she called when he tried to duck into a corner. "Wait! Curaré threw me out for not being hardhearted enough. I … I'll help you get in … she's going to kill Inque and Deanna."

He went to her despite himself. "Inque? Inque is here?" he asked.

Melanie's face seemed to twist in a scowl for a moment. Then she was just looking grave again. "Yes," she replied. "Come."

She ran her hands along the chain holding the doors closed. She found a weak link and unwound the heavy chain. Slowly, she pushed the door open so that it would not creak. Terry followed warily.

Melanie led Terry through a corridor and into a storage chamber. It was dark. There was no sign of Curaré, Inque or Deanna. He turned to her. "What –"

She shoved him backwards, hard. His back hit something hard, and he felt cuffs snap shut around his wrists and ankles, holding him to the hard surface behind his back.

Melanie laughed and threw a light switch on. A woman's dead body lay in the centre of the floor. Deanna's dead body. She pressed another switch. A spotlight flared over a transparent storage vat.

Inque lay unconscious on the bottom of the vat. There was smoke rising from her body. Electrocution. Curaré stood by a lever in the wall beside the vat. "When that lever is pulled, five hundred litres of solvent will rush into that vat," Melanie gave the commentary with glee. "First, you will watch that metamorphic blob die. Then you will die."

Terry tore his eyes away from Inque to look at Melanie. "Why?" he asked her.

Melanie's mood changed abruptly. Tears began to trickle from her eyes. "You! I never did have a place in your heart, did I? There was Dana. And now there is that freak in the vat!" she shouted almost incoherently. She lowered her voice into a menacing whisper, "If I can't have you, no one else will, either."

As if taking a cue, Curaré pushed the lever down. The mouth of a large pipe opened, and liquid solvent rushed into the vat, submerging Inque within seconds. The near-opaque liquid obscured her from Terry's view.

"That was all we ever needed Deanna for. To open the old pipe linking the vats in this factory to the new one next door. When it was done, she became … expendable," Melanie said.

The vat was filled, and Curaré closed the pipe. Terry started to struggle against the cuffs holding him to the wall, but they were made of reinforced steel. Curaré came over and handed her power-charged scimitar to Melanie.

"Stab through the heart, plus electrocution," the Melanie who was no longer the Melanie Terry knew murmured. "No mistakes." Curaré went to a high crate about twenty metres away, vaulted onto it and sat as if on a throne. Melanie drew the scimitar back.

A hole suddenly appeared in the storage vat's thick glass wall. Inque shot out of it in a blur of black. Melanie whirled around and slashed at her with the scimitar. The metal passed through Inque's liquid body, causing no harm. She seemed to be insulated or immune to the electric shocks, somehow.

Inque was angry, angry, angry. They had killed Deanna. Now they were going to kill Terry, too. She had guessed their plan correctly. She was strong now, stronger than she had ever been. She did not even feel the electric shocks from the scimitar. Splitting into five tendrils, she started assaulting Ten from five different directions.

Then Curaré jumped from the high crate. Just as she did, the glass vat shattered, ending huge shards of glass and waves of chemical crashing to the floor of the storage chamber. The blue-skinned assassin was bowled over by the wave. A curving piece of glass splashed into the liquid where she had fallen.

Pushing Ten away, Inque spread herself over the space in front of Terry, deflecting flying shards of glass. When it was safe, she dragged Ten from the wet floor and hung her by her wrists in the air. A third tendril clouted the barely conscious girl over the head, and she fainted.

Inque returned to her human form, dropping Ten and breathing deeply. She glanced over at the floor beneath the high crate. Curaré lay there, miraculously alive, conscious and not very badly hurt, pinned under the large piece of glass that had fallen on top of her.

Ignoring the struggling Curaré, Inque fished some keys from Ten's pocket and used them to unlock the cuffs holding Terry to the wall. The wave of mutagen had slammed his head against the wall, knocking him out. Mutagen, not solvent. Smiling, she passed an eye over her adversaries. _Amateurs. Don't you know you're messing with a saboteur?_


	7. Inque Alone

**Chapter 7 – Inque Alone**

Terry woke up on the floor of the storage chamber. The back of his head ached dully, and his vision was blurred. There was nothing from Bruce Wayne. He realised that the building was probably insulated against radio waves.

He started to sit up. There was movement to his left. A hand in the centre of his chest pushed him back down. Someone leaned over him. Fingertips touched his temple gently – his cowl had been taken off.

"Your eyes are glazed," a familiar voice said. "I think there's mutagen in them …" The speaker left him for a moment, then came back with something in her hand. Her free hand held his eye open.

Water dripped into the eye. It stung, and he blinked. After a few blinks, he could see clearly out of one eye. Inque was busy washing the chemicals out of his other eye.

"How –"

"How did I survive being submerged in a whole vat of solvent?" Inque finished for Terry. "They opened the pipe connecting that vat to the new factory next door so they could tap on the solvent supply. I went down there and shut the pipe they opened. I connected the vat to the mutagen supply instead. There's always a reason for a rendezvous point. If you've spent a few years dealing with moneyfaced, power-hungry megalomaniacs, you learn that fast. How are your eyes?"

Terry did not reply. He just sat up and pulled Inque into a fierce hug. Suddenly all the strength went out of her, and she fought back tears. _Tears? I haven't shed tears since …_

"They killed Deanna," she muttered. "I was too late."

The sound of police sirens in the distance reached them. Terry reacted at once. He snatched up the cowl from where it lay beside him, put it on, and got to his feet, dragging a silent Inque with him. She followed, though, when he ran for the exit. He led her into the alley where he kept the Batcar.

"I'm going, now," she said softly. "Goodbye."

Terry frowned. She had never said bye before. "Going where?" he asked.

"Somewhere," she replied. "Don't look for me."

He reached for her wrist and clamped his hand around it. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Inque replied, "that this it the end. I have nothing now. I might as well go somewhere and continue my life as a corporate saboteur … it's all I'll be able to do. Think about it. I'm not even human."

Terry's answer was to pull her closer and kiss her. She jerked away almost immediately. "Don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "We have no future together." She slipped out of his grip and vanished into shadow.

Inque found her way out of Gotham. She attached herself to the back of a car going out on the highway. As the driver sped along, oblivious, she made herself comfortable and began to think.

She did miss Terry a.k.a. Batman, of course. She missed him terribly, even though she was only few miles from the city. But with separation came a certain sort of peace – he would forget her in the end, and he would find happiness sooner or later. Someone like him … he probably would not end up like Bruce Wayne.

Inque shifted her position. At least she did not have to worry anymore. She had nothing left, and that allowed for a new beginning. Without him. She wondered where she would go. He heart felt lighter the further she got from Gotham. And she smiled serenely. It would never have worked out anyway.


End file.
